


On My Honor

by branwyn



Series: Doing Our Best [1]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is figuring out his sexuality, Coming Out, M/M, Night Vale style homophobia, gay slurs, high school era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-29
Updated: 2014-03-29
Packaged: 2018-01-17 12:05:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1386991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/branwyn/pseuds/branwyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Night Vale branch of the Boy Scouts have called a town meeting to discuss proposed changes to their policies. It's 1998 and the political climate is changing. Earl Harlan makes a bold move, and it throws all Cecil's assumptions about their relationship and his own feelings into question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On My Honor

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by fandom chatter calling for a story in which Night Vale is not entirely the queertopia we sometimes like to pretend that it is. It also called for brave, strong, loyal Earl who doesn't fall into unpleasant "nice guy" tropes. I hope I did it justice.

Cecil Palmer is sixteen years old and five foot, two inches tall. This is exactly two and a half inches taller than he was two years ago. In _middle school_. 

The phrase everyone uses is “late bloomer.” As in, “Oh don’t worry, Cecil! You’ll have that growth spurt any day now. Some people are just late bloomers! Like Monastic Tumbleweeds, you know? They look like every other flowering shrub for years, till one day their root system dries out and the wind plucks them up, and they realize their true nature as nomadic, semi-sentient plants, called to a life of poverty and good deeds. Just wait for the wind, Cecil! Pretty soon, it’ll blow you where you’re meant to go.” 

At least Aunt Josie’s trying to be nice. Last week during gym class, Coach Al-Mujaheed suggested tying Cecil to a rack for an hour to stretch his bones out. Half the Night Vale Scorpions basketball team came down with leprosy last month and Coach is desperate to recruit new team members. But not even Cecil’s uncanny ability to sink basket after basket from the free throw line can make up for the fact that he’s a foot shorter than Coach wants his players to be.

Cecil doesn’t want to be on the baseball team, though. He’s a radio intern! No on cares what he looks like when they hear him speaking on the radio. Maybe that’s why the radio station feels like home now. People calling into NVCR don’t make condescending remarks about how grown-up he’s sounding all of a sudden. He hates when people say things like that. He doesn’t just _sound_ grown up, he wants to grumble in response. He is grown up! He’s sixteen! He does all sorts of important, mature things, like balancing his mother’s check book, and making sure their bills are paid on time. He’d got his driver’s license right after his last birthday, so now he even does most of the grocery shopping, and a lot of the cooking. 

Plus, he’s nearly a Weird Scout now; the younger boys look up to him. Granted, they don’t have to look up very far, but the fact that he still buys his clothes in the boys’ department (and sometimes the girls’ department, if he sees something cute) doesn’t mean he isn’t nearly an adult for all practical purposes. He is extremely mature for his age, even if certain unnamed best friends have committed the biological treachery of shooting up to over six feet tall, while Cecil is still having a hard time finding shoes in his size that don’t come with Velcro straps. He just comes from a short family! Heck, when his brother was sixteen, he hadn’t even—

Cecil blinks, confused. He doesn’t have a brother. He doesn’t know why he keeps forgetting that. 

Speaking of Scouts: he’s got two badges left to earn before he actually makes Weird Scout. His best friend Earl Harlan has been a Weird Scout since the summer, and he’s tipped to make Dreadnought Scout pretty soon. Earl’s promised to help Cecil with his Bloodstone Circle Purification and Subversive Radio Host badges in the next couple of weeks. It doesn’t matter that Earl himself had opted for the Subversive Municipal Engineer badge because Earl is good at literally _everything_. It would be very annoying, if they weren’t friends.

So Cecil isn’t worried about the badges. He’s worried about finding a Weird Scout uniform that will actually _fit_ him. He can’t keep wearing shorts, even if they are practical in the desert. He wants dignity. He wants _pants_. But he can’t find pants that don’t need to be hemmed in the leg, and the last time he’d asked Josie about hemming them for him, she’d treated him to a ten minute lecture on stereotyping the elderly, before tartly informing him that a Scout should be resourceful enough to hem his own damn pants.

She’s got a point. It isn’t that Cecil’s above learning how to sew. It’s just that he’d have to ask someone to teach him, and then he’d have to explain why, and _ugh, why is he so short._

“Why am I so short?” he demands of Earl on the phone a few minutes later. Every pair of pants he owns is lying on the bed, having been tried on and then discarded. Cecil is stretched out alongside them, boneless against the mattress, his head lolling back over the edge.

“You’d be better off asking a nutritionist,” Earl replies, because even though he has a perfectly functional sense of humor, he’d rather be helpful than funny. Sometimes this is annoying. Mostly Cecil loves that about him. 

(He loves nearly everything about Earl, to be honest. You can’t say that sort of thing out loud, obviously, but still, he’s pretty sure it’s normal to love your own best friend. Except that the temptation to say it out loud has been getting stronger ever since he and Earl got their Astral Projection badges last summer. Scouts with a soul strength of ten or less had to have a partner who could anchor them during the process, and Earl had been Cecil’s anchor. In those perilous moments when Cecil had been tempted to linger in the intangible realms as a being a pure energy, ultimately melding with the ineffable oneness of the universe, it had been Earl who called him back. In the astral state, Earl’s loyalty, courage, affection, and purity of spirit had shone like a lovely beacon on the shores of the physical world across the oceans of unreality. Finding his way home had been easy, thanks to Earl. Afterwards, of course, it had been Cecil’s turn to anchor Earl. Cecil’s never asked Earl what that was like, or how Cecil appeared to him in the non-corporeal state—what if it was awful, after all?—but sometimes he wants to ask anyway. Maybe some day he will.)

“Besides, there’s nothing wrong with being short,” Earl continues, when Cecil just keeps moping silently into the phone. “It gives you a significant tactical advantage in covert maneuvers. And your body doesn’t waste as much water during wilderness survival training.”

“That’s one way to look at it,” Cecil grumbles.

“Don’t be so negative. Look, it’s good that you called, I needed to tell you something anyway. Scoutmaster Ramirez has called a special meeting at city hall tomorrow.”

“Really?” Cecil pushed himself upright, frowning into the phone. “Why city hall?”

“Because it’s not just for Scouts. It’s open to parents and the community too. I’m not sure what it’s about, but attendance is mandatory above the level of Blood Pact Scout. So iron your shirt tonight.”

“Okay.” Was Cecil imagining it, or did Earl sound nervous? “Um, do you want to come over before? You know I can’t tie my tie right without you.”

There’s a silence on the other end of the line, and Cecil is pretty sure Earl is smiling. Or maybe rolling his eyes. Or both. “Sure. I’ll come. Fourteen hundred ok?”

“Okay. Thanks, Earl.”

“Anything for you,” says Earl, and hangs up.

*

City Hall is packed to the gills when Cecil and Earl get there the next day. They have no trouble spotting the rest of their troop, because they’re standing in disciplined ranks at the back of the hall, leaving the chairs for the townspeople. 

(The Girl Scouts are probably here as well; Cecil can see Scout Leader Lucy Guttierez keeping a watchful eye on the crowd. But in accordance with tradition, the Girl Scouts are all invisible, unknowable, and mystifyingly covert. No one knows how the Girl Scouts are recruited, what hierarchical structure they adhere to, or to what arcane wisdom they are privy. Everyone just knows that the Girl Scouts are dangerous. No one messes with Girl Scouts. _No one_.)

Cecil and Earl take their places in line according to their ranks, which means that Earl is at the head of one line and Cecil is stuck in the middle of a different line, just behind Steve Carlsberg. He doesn’t talk much to Steve, because he’s _incredibly_ annoying. Give him the slightest bit of attention, and he’ll run off at the mouth for hours about whichever pet conspiracy theory has his boxers in a bunch that day. Earl says Steve is just lonely. Cecil thinks they need to bust him back to Cub Scout until he earns a special badge in basic social skills created just for him.

Fortunately, the meeting is about to start, so chatter in the ranks is at a minimum. Scoutmaster Ramirez is standing on stage, flanking Mayor Tom Garmond to the right, while Scout Leader Gutierrez stands to the left, her stature militant. Ramirez faces straight ahead, putting two fingers to his eyes and turning them on the Scouts. Automatically, they dress their ranks. All whispering stops. The Mayor steps up to the podium, and the rest of the crown hushes slightly. 

Cecil doesn’t really like Mayor Garmond—no one does—but part of being a Scout means being respectful to municipal authority figures. So he does his best to look attentive.

Garmond taps the microphone once. “Welcome, everyone,” he croons, in the artificially silky tones of a life-long smoker who recently had his vocal cords replaced, because ‘not sounding like he’s gargling gravel’ had polled high in the list of qualities that Night Vale residents preferred in mayoral candidates. “As most of you are aware, we’ve called this special town meeting to discuss proposed changes to the policies of the Night Vale chapter of the Boy Scouts. Mr. Ramirez has kindly agreed to open the floor to comments and discussion from the community.” The mayor looks down at his notes and frowns. “And, uh, it looks like Scout Leader Gutierrez of the Girl Scouts also has a few…comments she would like to make. Please hold your questions and comments until our guests have finished. Mr. Ramirez will speak first.”

Cecil watches, feeling a thrill of pride as Scoutmaster Ramirez takes the podium. He looks very tall and handsome in his uniform, and his dark hair curls fetchingly around his temples. Cecil’s hair is never going to look like that, he thinks despairingly. He’s never going to have legs like that either. If he did, he wouldn’t mind so much about wearing shorts all the time; who wouldn’t show off, if they had legs like that?

“Thank you, Mr. Mayor,” says the Scoutmaster. “Ladies and Gentleman, I’ve asked for your participation in this meeting because a recent decision handed down by the California supreme court has raised…uh, concerns amongst the parents of boys currently enrolled the Night Vale chapter of the Boy Scouts. As you know, all male children in Night Vale are potential candidates for the City Council’s compulsory recruitment program. Therefore, it seemed only fair to open the question to the community in general.”

“Stop dragging your feet, Ramirez!” someone shouts from the second row of seats. “Get to the point already!”

A murmur travels through the assembly. Cecil can’t tell if it’s a hostile murmur, or a, “oh, dear, these scones are dreadful,” murmur. Cecil didn’t have a chance to sample the snacks before the meeting started, but the quality of the snacks tends to be uncertain in town meetings, and bad food often inspires bad general feelings.

“Yes, I’m getting there, Mr. Carlsberg, if you’ll just be patient.” There are a few snickers in the crowd, and Cecil can see the back of Steve Carlsberg’s neck turning beet red. Apparently, even annoying assholes can have embarrassing fathers. There’s probably something genetic going on there.

Scoutmaster Ramirez glances to his left, exchanging looks with Scout Leader Gutierrez, before clearing his throat and turning back to the mic. “Since the seventies, the official policy of the national leadership of the Boy Scouts of America has been one of…non-interference when it comes to individual chapters admitting new members to our ranks. Back then, of course, the debate was unfortunately split along racial lines. Individual chapters had independent discretion whether or not to admit people of color into their local troops. I hardly need to emphasize that, at this late date, discrimination along racial lines isn’t even a matter for debate, and is best treated as a chapter in our history that is to be learned from and never again emulated.”

There’s a faint murmur of acknowledgement amongst the crowd, and Cecil takes his chance to dart a quick glance at Earl—tall, broad shouldered, and black, standing proudly at the head of his line without the faintest hint of shame or uncertainty. Cecil feels a huge, roiling anger that dissipates after just a second. Because, after all, this was ancient history they were talking about, right? It was like Scoutmaster Ramirez said: no one looked twice at Earl, or people who looked like Earl, anymore. At least…he didn’t think they did? Hell, was Cecil’s position in Scouts subject to the same “discretion”? He isn’t exactly white, after all. He’s not quite sure what he is, actually—he’s never met his father, and his mother has never been forthcoming with details—but he definitely doesn’t look like, say, Carlsberg, say, or even Tak Wallaby.

Cecil swallows his unease and forces himself to pay attention. Scoutmaster Ramirez is still talking.

“Not to beat around the bush any longer, the situation is as follows: a case was recently brought before the California supreme court in an effort to formalize an official position of tolerance in all chapters of the Boy Scouts, extending not only to racial equality, but also to sexual orientation. Unfortunately, rather than legalizing the inclusive stance, the court’s ruling upheld the old position. The Boy Scouts of America are considered a privately funded organization, exempt from any state or federal law mandating equal opportunity for membership or employment.” Scoutmaster Ramirez makes a face like he’s bitten into something sour. “Obviously, Night Vale is not presently located within California state borders. Um…to be honest, I’m not sure what state’s jurisdiction we presently fall under. But the recent ruling in California has inspired some parents and community leaders to call for a clear statement of policy here in Night Vale regarding the status of gay Scouts and Scout leaders. Acting under…advisement, from the City Council, I saw no choice but to open the subject up to a larger debate. Scout Leader Guttierez of the Night Vale chapter of the Girl Scouts has some relevant remarks that she wishes to share in just a moment, and I myself will have some final comments. Afterwards, Mayor Garmond will open the floor up for debate.

Scoutmaster Ramirez steps back from the podium invitingly, and Scout Leader Gutierrez stalks forward, her face like thunder. Her expression is at painfully at odds with the normal, cheerful manner she exhibits whenever Cecil pops into the White Sands for a double scoop of dark chocolate drizzled with sriracha sauce. Come to think of it, he’s not sure the thundercloud hanging over her is entirely metaphorical.

“The Night Vale chapter of the Girl Scouts wishes to register its disgust,” she growls, her eyebrows working furiously, a faint hint of drool threatening to leak from the corner of her mouth. “The Girl Scouts of Night Vale are independent, self-sufficient, answerable to no one. Girl Scouts are honed into weapons that will survive all threats. Private matters such sexual orientation are irrelevant in the recruitment of new girls. We ask only a beating heart, hot blood, strong sinews, and a mind like a knife’s blade. This is why we are dangerous. This is why we are unseen. We do not tolerate interference from City Council. The hysterics of ignorant bystanders fall on deaf and merciless ears. We urge our brother Scouts to learn by our example.” Her voice drops to a low, sinister whisper. “ _We withdraw our protection from any citizen who supports this intolerant and asinine measure._ ”

An automatic frisson of fear sweeps through the crowd. No one is entirely certain what, precisely, the Girl Scouts have been protecting them from all these years, but Night Vale being what it is, no one really wants to find out.

Cecil himself is sweating nervously; he’s not even entirely certain why. It’s not just because of Scout Leader Gutierrez’s threats. It’s coming from…somewhere else. Something inside him that he can’t put a name to. But he relies on years of instilled discipline to maintain his ranks. He’s not going to embarrass himself, or his troop, just because he’s having _another_ unidentifiable existential crisis. 

Scout Leader Gutierrez stomps away from the platform, hissing over her shoulder at the crowd. Scoutmaster Ramirez steps to the mic again.

“Thank you, Scout Leader. And thank you to the Night Vale chapter of the Girl Scouts, for all that you do, and all that you graciously refrain from doing.” Ramirez clears his throat and addresses the crowd again. “For my own part,” he continues picking up his earlier thread, “I would like to say that the sexual orientation of any Scout or Scoutmaster in Night Vale has never created concern for us, one way or another. Nor do I think that it will create concerns in the future. And I feel strongly that the skills that we teach our boys are skills that we would wish any future adult citizen of Night Vale to possess, regardless of whom they may date or marry in the future. I am now turning the mic back to Mayor Garmond.”

Scoutmaster Ramirez—tall and strong and shapely in his olive cargo shorts—dismounts the stage. Mayor Garmond, who has been wringing his hands in the background, takes a step forward and leans into the mic. “Please raise your hand and wait be acknow—ehem. All right, the gentleman in the second row. Please rise and state your name before speaking.”

A traveling moderator with a microphone on a cord finds her way to the front of the hall. The man stands up. Steve Carlsberg, standing in front of Cecil, groans audibly.

“I’m Hank Carlsberg, and my son is a Scout,” he declaims, loudly. “And I object to my son being forced to keep company with known agents of the vague, yet menacing government agency that wants to monitor our every move. Why, just last month, my Steven solved _cold fusion_. He was going to present it at the annual NVHS science fair! But that same night, a black helicopter was seen flying overhead in our neighborhood, and when Steven woke up the next morning, he couldn’t remember any of his research. All the files on computer had been erased. He had to start his research project over from square one—something about making a battery out of a lemon.” Hank Carlsberg shakes his head, disgust evident in his tone. “And everyone _knows_ homosexuals are spies for the world government! That’s why they’re so charming and well-dressed! They’re above suspicion, till they day they brain-scan you into virtual imbecility. I won’t have my boy exposed to that kind of thing again, and if Scoutmaster Ramirez doesn’t take measures, I’ll be pulling my boy out of Scouts.” He sits down with an air of immense satisfaction.

“Dude,” mutters Tak, as Cecil tries hard not to snicker. “Did Steve’s dad just call him an imbecile?”

On stage, Mayor Garmond looks rather pained. Fortunately for him, a woman in the row opposite pops up and starts speaking without waiting to be recognized.

“My name is Sally Sultan, and I think Hank Carlsberg is being ridiculous,” she says, sounding irritable. “Agents of the shadow government all dress the same. How can anyone possibly tell which ones of ‘em are queers? The real problem isn’t the mind-scanning, anyway. It’s population growth. Night Vale’s mortality rate is already too high to sustain its population over the next few generations! Now, I’m not blaming the kids, of course. They can’t help being the way they are. But can’t we take them all in for a nice, safe, civilized round or two of re-education, just until they’re capable of doing their duty and having some babies? Once they’ve popped out a kid or two, they can go back to the way were! No harm, no foul.”

Cecil trades quick glances at his fellow Scouts, looking for an echo of the same panic and disgust that roils in his gut. Mostly he meets expressions of blank indifference, which doesn’t make him feel any better.

The truth is, while he might not have ever thought of himself as gay, he knows for a fact that he’s never seen himself as a future parent. The mere idea of having to undergo re-education until he’s _forced_ to want a baby makes him nauseous. Anyway, what if the re-education didn’t take? What if he and some…some girl whose face he can’t even picture end up having a baby together, and then the re-education wears off, and suddenly one day he looks down and finds himself responsible for a brand new, helpless, squirming bundle of human life imprinted with half his DNA, waiting for him to teach it to speak, and not shit itself, and whatever else small humans are supposed to learn? It makes his skin crawl.

At that point, Mayor Garmond clears his throat. “If I may,” he says, “the issue under discussion is not whether people of a homosexual persuasion have a place in Night Vale, generally. The issue is whether or not young men who possess a sexual and romantic attraction to other young men, ought to be permitted to be members of a tightly-knit, all-male institution such as the Boy Scouts. While I don’t wish to use the weight of my office to unduly influence anyone’s opinions, I can’t help but wonder how such young men can possibly be trusted to keep their minds on the highly dangerous and necessarily skills they’re called upon to learn, if they’re going to be distracted every time they bunk down with fellow Scouts in the close confines of a tent.” Garamond titters, a high, nervous sound that one or two people in the audience echo, but an even greater number of people of hiss. Really, _no one_ likes the mayor.

“I say kick ‘em all out,” calls a voice from the back rows. It’s a man’s voice, but he doesn’t identify himself. “My wife and I are having a baby, and the doctors are telling us it’s going to be a boy. I don’t want to spend the next eleven years living in terror that a scarlet envelope’s going to turn up on our door on his twelfth birthday. Not when we all know that a third of all Boy Scouts die in their first two years. So if I can keep my son safe by sending him to ballet and music lessons and teaching him the proper application of eyeliner in the mean time, I’m happy to do it. Better a queer kid than a dead one.”

Loud, uncontrolled squabbling breaks out among the adults at that point. Mayor Garmond calls for order, and is ignored. Cecil sneaks glances at the other Scouts standing in ranks around him. Some of them look as uncomfortable as he feels. Cecil squirms uncomfortably, ducking his head. The waterproof mascara he’d worn to school earlier in the day hadn’t completely washed off in the shower. He imagines everyone’s eyes on him, wondering, seeking answers to questions he’s never even asked himself.

Then, suddenly, a loud, clear voice sounds from the very back of the auditorium. Cecil’s head whips round, just in time to see Earl break ranks, taking a step forward. 

“Scoutmaster Ramirez,” Earl calls again, and some of the noise in the crowd dies down. “Permission to speak on this subject.”

A peculiar expression crosses Ramirez’s face when he identifies Earl. He sighs heavily.

“Craving the Mayor’s indulgence, Troop Leader Earl Harlan is recognized,” Ramirez intones into the microphone, which has the effect of shutting most of the rest of the townspeople up. “I think the rest of you will agree that it’s only fair to hear from some of the Scouts themselves on this subject. Harlan, say your piece.”

Cecil’s heart performs a somersault in his chest. His stomach sinks to the area of his kidneys, and his palms begin to sweat. He watches Earl—brave, strong, loyal Earl—make his way to the front of the town hall, where he turns to face the crowd with his head held high and shoulders squared. Earl always takes special care with his appearance when he’s wearing the uniform, but right now he looks like a Scout from a uniform catalogue: strong and manly and buff, the quintessential, beautiful all-American boy.

In fact, to Cecil’s dismay, he realizes that Earl looks every bit as handsome as Scoutmaster Ramirez, standing dignified at the front of the crowd, ready to meet all challenges. He is…magnificent. Somewhere, from the location of his kidneys, Cecil’s heart gives a forlorn _ba-thump_.

“Ladies, gentleman, and honorable folk not fitting within a narrow gender binary,” Earl says. “Thank you for letting me speak. My name is Earl Harlan. I’ve been a Scout since I received the scarlet envelope when I was twelve years old. I’m sixteen now, and I recently attained the rank of Weird Scout.” He takes a deep breath, and Cecil, watching him, feels a thousand futures coalesce to an uncertain potential in those brief moments of silence before they break. “I have also recently come to the conclusion that I am gay.”

The hall erupts into a controlled pandemonium at this point. As far as Cecil can tell, half the crowd is calling for Earl (and all the Scouts) to be removed from the meeting, on the grounds that it’s wrong and unfair for teenagers to place himself in the firing line of such a debate. Other people—Hank Carslberg, for instance—point fingers while frothing at the mouth and scrambling for the tin-foil hat that he persists in believing will protect him from government brain scans. Fortunately, no one is paying much attention to Hank, except for Steve, whose face is still beet-red, and looks as though he’s hoping for a portal to open up and whisk him away to another dimension.

“Order, please!” says the mayor, feebly. No one listens to him. Scoutmaster Ramirez strides forward and repeats the request, in a low, foghorn bellow that cuts through most of the high pitched babbling. 

But not until Scout Leader Guttierez raises her hand, making a silent, indecipherable gesture with her fingers, does all noise in the hall fall abruptly silent. This probably has something to do with the fact that at least fifty Girl Scouts, outfitted in pleated skirts, neat blouses, and bandoliers of ammunition, have suddenly materialized at each end of each row of seats. The Girl Scouts are all armed with tranquilizer guns, their fingers on the triggers. 

The townspeople look around, uncomfortable, surprised. A number of them begin rummaging through their handbags and pockets for gum and mints. They cram their mouths full of sweets, and the chatter ceases completely.

“Thank you,” says Earl, the very picture of politeness. “As I said, I have recently come to realize that I am gay. But when I was twelve, and the scarlet envelope appeared in my mailbox, I had no idea what I was. Maybe some twelve year olds are more self-aware than I was at that age, but when I was twelve, I wasn’t thinking about whether I liked boys or girls or anyone else. All I cared about was how excited I was to be chosen. I’d wanted to be a Scout for as long as I could remember. And even when I got older, and I started questioning my sexuality, it never interfered with my ability to perform my duties. I wasn’t looking at my fellow Scouts in a romantic or sexual way. I was too busy learning to adapt to the challenges of my training. And even now, that I know for certain that I prefer boys to girls, my priority remains being the best Scout I can be. As a Scout, I took an oath to conduct myself with ‘moral straightness’. Other people may feel differently, but I don’t believe that ‘moral straightness’ is the opposite of being gay. To me, it means that I have a duty to be considerate of my fellow Scouts and never make them feel uncomfortable. I would no sooner force myself on a fellow Scout than I would force myself on a girl my own age. If the men in my troop need me to shower and bunk separately from the rest of them, I have no problem with that. We’re a unit, and nothing comes before the unit. In…in my opinion, barring homosexual Scouts and Scoutmasters is like saying that the oaths and the discipline that make us Scouts aren’t strong enough to cope with the challenges that are thrown at us. And that is an opinion that I must respectfully disagree with. Scouts face far greater challenges than this every day. Learning to survive challenges is what makes us worthy of the ranks we earn. I hope that those of you who have concerns can take this perspective into account before you make any final decisions.”

Cecil has been staring at Earl since the moment he began talking. Now that his speech is finished, and the crowd is coming to life again—some people applauding, others hissing, others rising from their chairs, whether to participate in a standing ovation or else to stalk away in disgust, Cecil scarcely notices. He continues to have eyes only for Earl. Brave Earl, magnificent, eloquent Earl—beautiful Earl.

He watches as his friend makes his way back to the ranks of Scouts assembled behind the rows of seats. Distantly, he is aware of Scoutmaster Ramirez and Mayor Garmond attempting to get control of the crowd again, but Cecil scarcely notices. When Earl rejoins his troop, the boy behind him thumps him on the shoulder a few times, a congratulatory gesture. Cecil is overwhelmed by the urge to barge in between them and glower at anyone else who dares to think of touching Earl. His Earl—his best friend. His…Cecil doesn’t have the right words for it. All he knows is that a possessive streak is snaking through his torso and limbs, accompanied by the ironclad conviction that no one should be touching Earl except for him.

Is this love? Not best-friend love, calling-you-home-from-astral-plane love, but _love_ love? Cecil doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what _gay_ means anymore, not if Earl is gay. He doesn’t fit any stereotype Cecil is familiar with. Earl is completely above the sordid, locker-room insults that have been his only concept of gayness before now. Is this why Earl never blinks when Cecil comes home from a shopping trip with a bright yellow sundress and strappy sandals to match? Has Cecil simply been oblivious to the stares and assumptions of people in the street when he wears his cute outfits out around town? Has Earl been shielding him by walking down the street with him, carrying a standard issue Scout rifle slung over his shoulder?

The meeting goes on for another thirty minutes or so, but Cecil doesn’t hear a word of it. He’s just waiting for the meeting to be over. Waiting for his chance to drag Earl out of here, so that they can—talk. That’s all he wants to do, right? Talk. Straighten things out—so to speak.

It’s the longest thirty minutes of his life. When the meeting disperses, and Scoutmaster Ramirez dismisses them from their ranks, Cecil makes a beeline for Earl and catches him by the wrist.

“Come home with me,” he says pleadingly. “Right now. Please?”

Earl looks at him. His expression is difficult to read: equal parts trepidation, hope, and some other, unidentifiable emotion that Cecil can’t make out. But in the end, he just smiles.

“Of course, Cecil,” he says. “Anything for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to keep this short, since I default to writing novels if I'm left unchecked, but there will probably be a sequel.


End file.
